The spoon was once owned by Joseph Mayer, an avid collector, who gave his collection to Liverpool Museum (now World Museum) in 1867.

The spoon, which is about two thousand years old, is 11 cm long, so too large for eating or serving food. The museum’s records tell us that the spoon was found in a turbary, which means an area of bog or peatland, in Ireland. Archaeologists have found a variety of Celtic objects, including large spoons, in bogs and wetlands, presumably deposited as a sacrifice, and it is likely that the Mayer Spoon was also placed in the turbary as part of a religious ritual or ceremony.

Spoons similar to the Mayer Spoon are usually found in pairs, with one spoon pierced with a small hole and the other marked with a cross, like the Mayer Spoon. Perhaps the hole was used to drip a liquid through one spoon into the other, either to feed the gods or even to see into the future. So, there are two mysteries: what was the Mayer Spoon used for and will future archaeologists ever find the pair to the Mayer Spoon?

2014 is a very special year for the Isle of Man and I’m really pleased that the ‘Mayer Mirror’, one of World Museum’s Celtic objects, is playing a starring role in the island’s celebrations. The mirror will be going on loan to the exhibition ‘Celtic Style’, staged by Manx National Heritage, and is one of the highlights of ‘Island of Culture 2014’, the largest cultural celebration ever to have been held in the Isle of Man.

The ‘Mayer Mirror’ is one of the most famous objects once owned by Joseph Mayer, a passionate collector, who gave his collection to Liverpool Museum (now World Museum) in 1867. The mirror, which is about two thousand years old, would have been made somewhere in Britain – we don’t know exactly where. The decorated side shown on the photo is, in fact, the back of the mirror and the front, which you can’t see, would have been highly polished. The museum’s records tell us that the mirror was probably found in the River Thames, close to Barnes in south-west London.

We are planning to take the mirror off display in early March, to prepare it for its journey to the Isle of Man, so do take the opportunity to see it in the Weston Discovery Centre on Level 3 of World Museum. Keep following the blog for news about another very special object which will be going on display in the Weston Discovery Centre very soon!

‘Celtic Style’, which runs from early April 2014 until February 2015, will be staged in the House of Manannan on Peel Quayside and explores Celtic style from prehistory to the present.

]]>Apollo in the USAhttp://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/2013/11/apollo-in-the-usa/
Thu, 21 Nov 2013 16:11:24 +0000http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/?p=3699Regular visitors to the Ancient World Gallery at World Museum may have noticed that one of our statues, Apollo Sauroktonos (Apollo the Lizard-Killer), a Roman copy of a famous statue by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles, hasn’t been on display since the summer. That’s because the statue is on loan to Cleveland Museum of Art in the USA, where it’s one of the star items in the special exhibition ‘Praxiteles: The Cleveland Apollo’, which is open until 5th January 2014. I was recently on holiday in Cleveland to see ‘our’ Apollo alongside the bronze Apollo from the Cleveland Museum of Art and a marble Apollo from the Louvre in Paris, the first time that all three sculptures have been displayed together.

Dr Gina Muskett with Dr Michael Bennett, Cleveland Museum of Art

My guide to the exhibition was Dr Michael Bennett, my counterpart at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Dr Bennett and I

discussed his theory that the Cleveland Apollo, is an original work by Praxiteles, and accordingly dates from the 4th century BC. Furthermore, he suggests that, when complete, the Cleveland Apollo would have shown the god killing a python rather than a lizard, and that the statue was probably originally erected at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, in central Greece. Do take time to follow the link to read more about the exhibition!
The loan of the Apollo has meant that I have been able to have another statue on display – a statue of Dionysos, god of wine and the theatre, shown as a young man. I hope you’ll come and visit us soon to see Dionysos, and the other splendid Roman sculptures in the Ancient World Gallery.

Are you planning a visit World Museum during the half-term break? You mustn’t miss our new case in the Ancient World Gallery on Level 3, with objects which have never been on display before. Caring for our collections is one of our on-going jobs, and I am very grateful to Steve, our metals conservator, and Jan, our ceramics conservator, for their help in getting these objects on display.

The most spectacular is a magnificent Greek helmet which is about 2,500 years old. This type of helmet is described as ‘Corinthian’, named after the Greek city. As you can see, it protected the whole of the face and neck.

I am fascinated by the Etruscans, the people who lived in central Italy before the Romans.

They had their own type of pottery, today called ‘bucchero’, which is a black ware, made shiny by burnishing (polishing). The burial tray, called ‘focolare’ in Italian, was a model of a brazier and would originally have contained small bowls and tools; all that would be needed for a meal in the afterlife. You can see three tools – a spoon, ladle and spatula – displayed next to the brazier.

Finally, we have a large pot called an ‘amphora’, made in Athens at the end of the 6th century BC and decorated in the style called ‘black-figure’ by art historians. The scene you can see on display is set outside the gates of the city of Troy, before the fighting started in the Trojan War. The two men are the Greek heroes, Ajax and Achilles, whiling away the time by playing a game of dice, watched by the goddess Athena. I think that the really interesting thing is that this episode doesn’t feature in Homer’s epic ‘The Iliad’, which tells the story of the Trojan War. The scene was apparently invented by Exekias, considered to be the greatest painter and potter of Greek vases, and was copied by the painter of our amphora.

‘Konnichawa’ means ‘hello’ in Japanese, and that is how I was greeted by Yukiko Saito from Kyoto Seika University in Japan who visited World Museum this week. Yukiko was awarded a grant by the Japanese government to come to the UK to help her university research on the fascinating topic of colour in antiquity.

Yukiko also writes reports for a classical society in Japan, and I was very pleased when she asked me whether she could feature World Museum’s collection of Greek and Roman antiquities. Here you can see Yukiko making notes on our ‘Life and Death’ case in the Greek section of the Ancient World Gallery on the third floor of World Museum. Her favourite objects in the case are these lovely earrings.

Come and visit the Ancient World Gallery, and let me know which object or objects you like best!

Let’s go back in time to 23rd August AD 79, to a little town on the Bay of Naples called Pompeii. Little did the inhabitants know that their world was going to be torn apart, quite literally, the following day when Mount Vesuvius, the volcano which overlooks the Bay of Naples, erupted.

We are very lucky to have a surviving eye-witness account of the eruption thanks to the letters of a Roman writer called Pliny. Pliny tells us that despite some warning signs, everyone was surprised by the eruption, which began on the morning of 24 August and lasted for over 24 hours.

Those who escaped Pompeii and the other towns round the Bay of Naples had a good chance of surviving, but it seems that many others thought their best chance was to take shelter, only to perish an in avalanche of searing ash, pumice and volcanic gas which surged down from Vesuvius at around midnight. Pompeii was not reoccupied, perhaps through fear of another disaster, and it was not until the 18th century when early archaeologists began to rediscover the homes of 20,000 people, alongside their possessions.

I was studying a box of Roman lamps in our stores, and it’s normal to look at the front and back of any lamp. I am sure you can imagine how excited I was to find the word ‘Pompeii’ written in ink on the back of one of them by someone who owned the lamp before it came to the museum.

Archaeologists are continuing to study Pompeii and the eruption of Vesuvius, and some now believe that the town was destroyed in November AD 79 rather than August. If you’d like to learn more about the eruption of Vesuvius, the BBC website has some very interesting information.

We’re planning to refurbish the Ancient World Gallery on the third floor of World Museum and I’m always looking out for interesting objects which haven’t been on display before and which help us understand Roman people and their families. In the meantime, do come and visit us and see our wonderful collection of Roman sculpture!

The box once belonged to a woman who lived in Kent in the 6th or 7th century, and it was found in her grave.

When the excavator opened it he found a bundle of short woollen threads; you can see their remains on the left of the picture.

If you said ‘work box’, you could be right, but perhaps the threads are too short to use for sewing. Another name for this type of object is ‘relic box’ because some scholars think the threads were special to their owner.